Centuries ago, there lived a king who had a beautiful garden. After being away from his kingdom for some time he returned home and immediately wanted to look at his garden. Upon arriving to his beloved garden, he found everything in disarray. All the trees and vines were dry and bare. All the plants and flowers were feeble and drooping.

Saddened by this he asked the plants, “Why, what’s the matter with you?”

The vine was the first to respond. “Life’s not fair,” she huffed, “I can’t grow tall and mighty like the pine tree, so I gave up growing.”

The pine tree added, “And I’m good for nothing. I can’t grow juicy red fruits like the apple tree. So, I don’t want to be here anymore either.”

But neither was the apple tree immune from the gloom that had spread through the garden. For even though she had been praised by the pine tree, she herself complained, “My flowers will never be as beautiful or receive as many praises as the roses’, so what’s the point in growing them anymore?”

Just then, out of the corner of his eye, the king noticed a violet. He turned and looked at the little flower. In turn, she looked up at him as bright and beaming as ever.

Curious as to why this little flower was in such better shape than all the rest he said, “Violet, you don’t seem troubled at all. Why are you so bright and happy?”

“I am happy,” the violet answered, “because I know that when you planted me you had a purpose. When you put my seed into the ground, you didn’t want a pine tree, or an apple tree or a rose bush. You wanted a violet.  So, from the day I sprouted I decided that to please you I would become the best little violet I could be.”

Like the king, when God the Father looked upon the garden of this world, for centuries upon centuries all he could find was a troubled, broken, and bitter humanity. Until one day an immaculate seed came forth as that immaculate woman named Mary. She was the little flower who pleased him the most. She was the brave young woman who like the little violet said, “I am here to be the best woman you wanted me to be. Behold, I am the handmaid of the Lord.”

This simple story and its application to Our Blessed Mother has a lesson to teach us. True happiness is found in willingly being who God created you to be. Happiness is not found in having what other people have—talents, opportunities, looks, pleasures and leisure—but in being the beloved unrepeatable child of God He created you to be.

Mary knew this and this was why she consecrated her life to Him in virginity. But then that day came when God revealed to her a deeper understanding of her vocation as woman. She listened to it, accepted in, and willingly threw herself into fulfilling it. This is what is expressed by the simplicity of those words, “Be it done unto me.” They are an expression of her wholehearted commitment to the will of God in being both the virgin and the mother that He created her to be on His time, in His way, and within the confines of the circumstances that He deemed most fit.

We should never believe the lie we tell ourselves, “I will be happy when…” God wants us to be happy now. Mary shows us how to be happy now. We must see each moment as it is with faith, embrace it with hope, and live it with love for the glory of God.

As Caryll Houselander writes in The Reed of God, the secret to Mary’s happiness is in her simple and humble commitment to the Lord’s will. And like Mary, the Lord does not ask us to compare ourselves to one another; to look at everyone else’s life and imagine we could be happier if we were in their shoes. Nor does He necessarily ask us to do extraordinary things or have extraordinary talents or even extraordinary opportunities to love Him and serve Him. Most of us are called to walk the humble way of Mary.

“What we shall be asked to give is our flesh and blood, our daily life—our thoughts, our service to one another, our affections and loves, our words, our intellect, our waking, working, and sleeping, our ordinary human joys and sorrows—to God.”

Our role in the garden of life is to give all that we have back to God as the little violet did so as “to become the best” child of God that we can be in imitation of Mary.

Seize the day and make it all Hers!